Popcorn Thief by Leah Cutter Page A

He turned back to the
bum. “Come on, buddy, there you go.” He raised the man up a little and tried
giving him a drink of water.
    The man sputtered and coughed, then heaved a huge sigh before
he opened his eyes. At the sight of the pair of them, he suddenly sat up and
scrambled backwards, trying to get away.
    “Hey, hey!” Darryl said, reaching out and grabbing the guy’s
leg so he couldn’t get away. “We ain’t here to hurt you.”
    The man reached up and touched his cheek gingerly. “Yeah?”
he said, disbelieving.
    “We didn’t do that,” Franklin assured him. “Look, I’m
Franklin, this here’s my cousin Darryl.”
    “Billy,” the man said. He looked fearfully beyond them out
into the clearing. “You sure it wasn’t some kind of dog or trained wild animal?
Something that’s with you two?” His voice sounded like sandpaper roughed over
hard stones.
    Franklin didn’t bother pointing out that an animal that was
wild was the opposite of trained.
    “It wasn’t us,” Darryl said. “Or any animal we have with us.
It’s—wild. We was tracking it.”
    Billy nodded. “I ain’t never seen anything like it before.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t some kind of trick that you two pulled.”
    Darryl rolled his eyes, but Franklin asked, “What did you
see?”
    “Some kind of whirling light. Calling to me, out here, under
the trees,” Billy said. “Haven’t been hitting the hooch today,” he added
defensively. Then he paused. “Okay, only a bit, though. So I followed it. Then
it attacked me.” He looked suspiciously at Franklin and Darryl again.
    “We came up while it was standing over you. You were down on
the ground,” Franklin said. “We chased it off.”
    “You still should have shot it,” Darryl complained.
    Billy shook his head. “Won’t catch that thing with guns.”
    “What do you mean?” Franklin asked. “What do you think it
was?”
    “Evil,” Billy countered. He looked straight at Franklin, his
watery brown eyes suddenly sharp and clear. “And the only thing that’ll combat
that thing is love.”
    Darryl scoffed. “Right. We’re supposed to hug it to death.
No, we got good rock salt here, ready to blast it to bits.”
    “Do you think that’ll work?” Billy asked Franklin, ignoring
Darryl.
    “It likes salty things,” Franklin replied. He really didn’t
know what else to do.
    “Right, which is why it was licking my cheek,” Billy said
sarcastically. “That thing’s a killer. And it’ll come back after me, won’t it?”
    Franklin hesitated, but he had to tell Billy the truth.
“Yeah, it might. But I ain’t never seen anything like it before, so I don’t
know for certain.”
    “Okay. Guess I better go break the law, then,” Billy said as
he heaved himself up.
    Franklin and Darryl stood as well. “What do you mean?”
Franklin asked.
    “He breaks the law, he’ll be thrown in jail for the night,
maybe two. You think a few bars are gonna stop that thing?” Darryl asked.
    “Nope,” Billy replied. “But being around a bunch of other
folks will. It drew me out here, away from the others. Now, they’re a sorry
group. I wouldn’t trust ’em with my sister, and she’s both a black belt and a whore.
They’re too confused to be much help. But a nice clean jail cell with a bunch
of cameras? That thing’ll swerve off.”
    “Why do you think it called you, and not the others?”
Franklin asked before Billy turned to go.
    “Don’t know if it was calling just me or not,” Billy said. “But
I was the only one who heard it.” He shrugged. “Just thought it was another one
of those damned voices. Thank you for the water,” he said, nodding his head at
Darryl. “And thanks for the warning.” Then he turned and tramped off through
the woods.
    “Should we go after him?” Franklin asked Darryl quietly. Was
it safe for him here in the woods? How long before that thing came after him
again? Or would it go after someone else now?
    “Do you want him sleeping on